The raids were being conducted in more than 19 places spread over the cities of Noida, Ghaziabad, Meerut and Lucknow, CBI sources here today said.

Those, who are in the CBI net, included several senior officials, who were posted at the Noida Development Authority and other prime places where the scam had taken place in July, 2005.

There had been a wide-ranging protests over the manner in which the plots were alloted to some 'favoured' people belonged to influential class. These people included many bureaucrats and politicians close to the then chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav.

The CBI sources had confirmed about the raids but refused to say anything about their course of action. Seven teams from Delhi CBI headquarters started the raid at about 0700 hrs in the morning.

In Lucknow, the raids were being conducted at about five places with one being at the state headquarters of Uttar Pradesh Development Systems Corporation (UPDESCO), which had prepared the software to conduct the lottery for the allotment.

Raids were been conducted at the Butler Palace, residence of the then senior UPDESCO officer D S Pathik. Residence of senior IAS officer and former CEO of Noida Authority Deodutt Sharma at Rajbhawan colony was also searched by the CBI seluths.

According to UPDESCO sources, the CBI team has seized several computers and hard disk from their headquarters during the day long raid.